Two Hearts - Pregnancy Consultations
Resources
The factsheets below will provide you with information on these two pregnancy complications.
Pregnancy is a wonderful and exciting time for a future mother and her baby. It is an important life stage where a mother’s health, and the health of the baby are consistently monitored. Although most pregnancies are not complicated by any serious problems, some women may have specific health issues, or pregnancy related problems, which need to be carefully looked after and monitored.
Two commonly occurring pregnancy complications are high blood pressure or high blood sugar during pregnancy. These two conditions are classified as cardiometabolic complications.
High blood pressure
If diagnosed and left untreated, high blood pressure during pregnancy can result in conditions such as pre-eclampsia for the mother and early (or preterm) birth for the baby.
High blood sugar
If diagnosed and left untreated, high blood sugar during pregnancy can result in other pregnancy complications such as high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia or changes to your birth plan. The baby may be born early (preterm) or grow larger than it should.
High blood pressure and high blood sugar during pregnancy may develop into type 2 diabetes mellitus and/or heart disease later in life.
Our Study
While the health system and your maternity clinic will monitor (or screen) you for these conditions, this study will help you manage the conditions using an evidence-based lifestyle approach and provide you and your future baby with knowledge and strategies to reduce your risk of health complications following pregnancy. This study will also improve the way health professions identify and treat these conditions in antenatal and postpartum care.
Study aims
- Optimise the screening and management of women who are at high-risk of developing high blood pressure or high blood sugar during pregnancy.
- Improve women’s knowledge of a healthy lifestyle during and following pregnancy with a focus on; heart healthy eating, safe exercise and emotional well-being during and after pregnancy.
- To assist, empower and encourage women to apply healthy lifestyle principles to their daily lives by tailoring the program to women’s needs, preferences, and cultural considerations.
How will we do this?
This study will include women who are in their first trimester of pregnancy and have been identified as having a ‘high risk’ of developing the cardiometabolic complications (listed above) during pregnancy, using a Monash Health risk calculation tool. Over X weeks during pregnancy, women will meet with a trained health coach (an accredited dietitian or registered nutritionist) to work through a personalised heath education program and goal setting journey.
Following the birth of baby, women who were diagnosed with high blood sugar, high blood pressure or preeclampsia during pregnancy, and who completed the pregnancy program, will be invited to participate in a post-partum follow-up program. The post-partum program is an opportunity to re-connect with their health coach, learn new and improved ways of maintaining a heart-healthy diet and exercise with a new baby, discuss mental health positives or challenges during this time and opt-in to an extensive, intensified stage of the program.
Our Program
Our interactive, coach-led program will be personalised to you and your needs as you progress through your pregnancy. We will help you to discover and maintain healthy, sustainable lifestyle habits for you and your baby – both during and after your pregnancy.
During pregnancy, our lifestyle program is divided into 4 coaching sessions.
During this session, you will meet your coach and they will provide you with a detailed overview of the program, personalise your study schedule to best suit you, and explain the reason why you were chosen to participate in the program.
Your coach will introduce you to some important factors in achieving and maintaining a healthy pregnancy, the importance of screening for complications, and the link between your diet and level of physical activity with reducing health risks for yourself and your baby.
The following booklet (link to PDF) will provide you with this session’s key information, learnings and additional resources.
- Resource 1
- Resource 2
- Resource 3
In this session, you will explore different types of pregnancy complications in more depth. Your health coach will explain how these complications may arise and how we can reduce the chance of them developing with simple changes to our daily lives, lifestyle and eating habits.
We will take a closer look at the principles of a healthy diet and integrate this knowledge with your wants, needs, preferences and values, then set goals to work towards realistic changes you aim to achieve.
The following booklet (link to PDF) will provide you with this session’s key information, learnings and additional resources.
- Resource 1
- Resource 2
- Resource 3
In this session, your coach will guide you through some of the physiological changes that you will experience during pregnancy, how you may perceive these and how you can be physically active as you progress through them.
Our aim is to provide you with personalised strategies to improve your physical activity in accordance with guidelines, to optimise your and your baby’s health outcomes. Please note, this session includes warnings and contraindications to physical activity.
Here, we will review your personal goals to make sure you’re on track and continue to assist in your journey to achieve them.
The following booklet (link to PDF) will provide you with this session’s key information, learnings and additional resources.
- Resource 1
- Resource 2
- Resource 3
This is our last session while bub is still in belly! During this session, your coach will discuss topics that may already be on your mind. These include:
- breastfeeding
- post-partum nutrition for you and your baby
- post-partum planning for mental health (social support/stress management/services)
- how to maintain your progress through this program with a new born.
A major focus of this program is to optimise your health during pregnancy to reduce your future risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases later in life. In this session, we will begin to consider how this time of your life and specifically, your pregnancy, is linked to long-term health outcomes and chronic disease. Again, we will give you the tools, knowledge and advice to adequately screen for disease and attenuate your risk.
The following booklet (link to PDF) will provide you with this session’s key information, learnings and additional resources.
- Resource 1
- Resource 2
- Resource 3